30. Chapter 30
thirty
The table went silent. All eyes stared at me. For several long beats, it seemed as if everyone was waiting for someone else to say something.
No one said a word, though. Not even Rye, who glared into me, unblinking and probably incensed.
I didn’t care. Sebastian was my friend. My oldest and best friend.
“This is a catastrophic idea,” said Nick.
“We were going to stage a rendezvous for Cahal,” I argued.
“We were not,” Rye said. “We were only going to agree to one to confirm Cahal lived.”
“Then we can make a new plan.”
“The risk is too high,” said Nick. “We don’t yet know the extent of Langwidere’s powers. Underestimating her has already cost us precious time. Time we’d had to spend playing defense.”
“We have some idea of the extent of my powers,” I said. “They were sealed before. Now they’re not.”
“So, you plan to single-handedly wipe out Langwidere’s forces with your powers?” Nick argued. “Which, I hope you’ll forgive my saying, you’ve yet to master.”
I sighed inwardly. Because, truthfully, that was putting things mildly.
I had next to zero control over my powers.
“Langwidere will be very suspicious of such a trade,” said Rye at last, his tone even, his expression impassive. “Why, after all, would we trade a powerful sorceress for a knight? She will see straight through such a plan.”
Of course, Rye had me there. But I couldn’t let up. Sebastian was a prisoner because of me.
“Furthermore,” said Rye, before my mouth could open, “if we bring attention to Sebastian, that will only increase his chances of being executed. He is our ally, after all. Too much focus on him will likely prompt backlash—on him. Langwidere isn’t naive. She knows you care for Sebastian.”
“Then how are we supposed to reach him?” I challenged.
“We will recycle my idea to retrieve Cahal,” he said.
“And that is?” prompted Dorothy.
“Pae,” said Rye, shifting his focus to the demon. “If you were in the Emerald City Palace, past Glinda’s wards, am I correct you could create portals?”
“Ahhh,” mused Pae. “I’m useful to you after all.”
Rye slow-blinked in response to the demon’s sing-song gloating. “So…that is a yes.”
I gripped the table. “You’re sending in Pae by himself?”
“If we’re trusting him to be in this room,” replied Rye, “why not trust him with this task?”
“You were going to let Pae rescue Cahal?” I asked. Not because I thought it was a bad idea, but because that strategy told me how desperate Rye had become.
“There would have been no other feasible option,” he said. “And there are no other feasible options regarding Sebastian, either.”
That stunned me for a moment. But I had to press him.
“Say we discover a method to smuggle Pae into the palace,” I said. “Say he’s able to retrieve Sabastian. Then what do we do? Invade the city?”
“You misunderstand me,” said Rye. “Langwidere’s forces have already begun to conquer the outer-lying areas of the Emerald City. It’s obvious she is planning a strike on one of the four quadrants—perhaps all four at once. Cahal is prepared, as are we. Grip has just returned from carrying correspondence to the South, too. The largely untenanted North, as we know, has already seen occupation by the Nomes. In short, we’re running out of time.”
“The North is not untenanted,” droned Pae. “Not anymore.”
“It was my plan to agree to the rendezvous but immediately attack instead,” said Rye. “We would have had to since you wouldn’t have been present. Now that Cahal is free, we can invade the Emerald City. During our assault, Pae can access the palace through the side secret entrance. The one beneath the waterfall. His sole task will be Sebastian’s rescue. That was the backup plan when Cahal had been our target. It will be the plan with Sebastian.”
“I can get Pae into the palace,” I argued. “We can get Sebastian out before we launch our attack.”
“Even if you can speak to Sebastian in dreams,” said Rye, “he won’t be able to lower Glinda’s wards. And I don’t have to ask Pae to know he cannot enter through the wards.”
“I’ve brought down Morella’s wards before,” I reminded him. “In the orrery. Isn’t it possible I can do the same with Glinda’s?”
“Morella’s wards were designed to be tampered with,” said Rye. “West set a trap with those wards—a trap for a powerful sorceress to unlock. A trap that worked.”
“But you said Glinda couldn’t even remove those,” I offered. “If I could remove wards too powerful for Glinda to bring down, maybe I could also bring down Glinda’s wards. Pae could get us close to the city tonight.”
“You will not be stepping foot anywhere near the Emerald City,” said Rye. “Not now, not when we invade.”
Silence claimed the room.
I stared into Rye, stunned and uncomprehending, but also adverse to showing that. Rye and I grew rifts as quickly as we closed them. That wasn’t something I wanted Dorothy witnessing, never mind Pae. So I smoothed my features.
“I am a witch,” I reminded him—all of them. “I’m capable of fighting too.”
“You are the Queen of Oz,” Rye corrected. “And the king and the queen cannot both venture into battle. One of us must remain here. And that will be you.”
I shot him a piercing glare. “You’re telling me I’m to stand aside while you all march off to war? And gamble with my best friend’s life? All while I have the power to do something about both the war and Sebastian?”
“The time for your power will come,” said Rye.
“Sebastian won’t survive the raid,” I argued. “He’ll be killed for certain.”
“I love votes of confidence.” Pae folded his arms. “Especially when, with the exception of Melon Face and Metal Head, I’ve saved everyone in here at least once.”
Nick peered at Dorothy. I spoke up to distract him.
“She’s only holding onto him because she knows I care for him,” I said.
Aside from that, Sebastian had no idea we were preparing to invade and, since I hadn’t known before now either, I hadn’t been able to warn him to get out of the castle—the city. No matter how valuable an “ally” he thought he was to Langwidere, she would slaughter him the moment he was no longer useful to her. The moment he ceased to be something she could hold over my head.
And Pae. Maybe I could trust him, maybe I couldn’t.
“We proceed with the plan to invade,” said Rye. “Pae will retrieve Sebastian if he can. You will wait here under Nick’s guard. Dorothy as well.”
“I knew you were going to say that,” muttered Dorothy to no one in particular, and not like she found Rye’s words savory at all. Folding her arms, she sat back in her chair.
“Cahal’s forces are already on the move,” said Rye. “The South is holding, as I’ve instructed. Nick’s forces start marching tomorrow—and I will be leading them.”
Wait… What? Rye was leaving?
“These plans are already in play and are not up for debate,” said Rye. “This meeting, I’ll remind you, was not about strategy or rescue missions. It was about the need for answers that currently evade us. Thus, there is no point in belaboring any of the issues we’ve already covered. All further discussion on any points with the exception of Ozma is forbidden.”
With that, Rye rose and swept from the room. I gaped after him, galled.
With a low croak and a swift flap of his wings, Grip launched after Rye, but no one else dared to follow.
Floored, unable to fathom Rye’s brutal coldness, his willingness to just leave Sebastian’s fate to chance, I sank back into my chair.
“And what do you have to say about him leaving you here?” Dorothy asked Nick.
“I don’t question Rye,” Nick replied. “I’ve long since learned not to.”
“Because he’s the king now before he’s your friend?” challenged Dorothy.
“Actually,” said Nick, “my reasons are the exact opposite.”
Dorothy scoffed and rose. Then she, too, left. As she passed me, though, I swore her glare softened for the briefest of moments.
An electric zip from the far end of the table stole my attention, but Pae had already vanished by the time I looked. I hoped that, wherever he’d gone this time, it wasn’t to warn Langwidere of the impending invasion he’d just found out about. But then, she had to suspect Rye would retaliate soon. Besides that, Rye wouldn’t have said anything about his military movements in front of Pae anyway if he truly cared about Langwidere finding out about them. Likely, there’d been far more regarding his plans that he’d left unsaid.
“I know you don’t like it, Mom,” said Jack. “But Rye is right this time.”
Squaring my jaw, I trained my gaze on the tabletop. Jack didn’t say anything after that. Instead, he left, too.
So then it was just me and Nick. Though I waited for him to depart, he remained. Was that sympathy wafting off him, or would he, too, leave me with words like Jack’s? Words that implied I was letting my emotions color my decisions—my ideas. Ideas that he, like everyone else, deemed misguided.
A long stretch of silence ticked on and on, one resounding enough to allow the whirr of his clockwork heart to bleed through it.
Maybe he was waiting for me to speak. Maybe I was waiting for him to.
In the end, I broke the silence.
“He was really going to send Pae in after Cahal?” I asked.
“You heard him say that was his backup plan,” said Nick. “Depending on the timing of the rendezvous. If Langwidere had insisted on an immediate meeting, Rye was going to enlist Pae to sabotage and ambush the rendezvous. Because a rendezvous made sense with Cahal—a king. Rye’s right, though, Tip. Proposing an exchange for Sebastian makes no sense.”
“If it was Dorothy in that castle and not Sebastian,” I argued, keeping my voice soft to better hide the tremble in it, “Rye would go himself.”
“Once perhaps,” agreed Nick. “Before he’d been made king. But not now.”
As he rose, my gaze snapped up to him. I glared at him, a surge of betrayal I tried to convince myself was unfounded coursing through me.
“You really think he wouldn’t go for her?” I asked, incredulous. “You expect me to believe that?”
“I am saying he would not go himself,” corrected Nick, that goggled gaze fastening onto me, his voice low and steady, his words slow and pointed. “Like you, he hasn’t the luxury of gambling with his own life. Too many other lives have come to depend on his.”
Nick stared at me for several moments longer—like he expected me to react in a certain way. A way different to fuming at him. I held my silence. Because I didn’t have anything nice to say about being benched for the next phase of our fight.
Guilt, too, rattled me, along with an acute sense of helplessness. Because Nick was right about the trade seeming suspicious, and possibly putting Sebastian in more danger. And, as Jack had said, that made Rye right, too, didn’t it?
Finally, Nick turned to go. He walked for the door slowly—almost too slowly. Then, at the threshold he paused, turning back. “You know, Tip. I never intended to keep the cap.”
I squinted at him. What did the cap have to do with any of this? “Wh-what?”
“Since the moment Glinda gave it to me,” he continued, “I’ve always regarded the artifact as…temporary insurance. After all, no one should hold that kind of power over another indefinitely. No matter who or what they are. Control, after all, is a tool of one who, at their core, is truly powerless. I just wanted you to know. I do not intend to keep it.”
I scowled at him as he again turned, and this time departed without another word. For several minutes, I sat glowering at the doorway, unable to interpret the abrupt and strange shift in subjects. We’d been talking about Sebastian, and then Nick had brought up the golden cap and the control it gave him over Pae—for no apparent reason.
But then, Nick never did—or for that matter said—anything without reason.
I shifted my focus to the open book Rye had shoved toward Pae. I drew it to me, but no answer appeared on the blank pages.
My head, however, began to swirl around a new option. One inspired by Nick’s words.
One that, if I played my cards right, might just…work.